The White Dragon Read online

  Through it all, prophecy, prayer, song, and story had spoken of a great warrior who would drive out the conquering powers that enslaved Sileria so that it could be, once again, a free and proud nation. He would prove himself by leaping into the volcano atop Mount Darshon and surviving. For centuries, of course, the mad zanareen kept flinging themselves into the Fires of Dar in attempt to achieve that ecstatic union with the goddess—and failing. Then Josarian had come along.

  Everyone knew the story. Hundreds of witnesses, including many skeptics, had been there to see the event. The rebel leader, the shallah who sacked Valdani supply posts and killed their uniformed Outlookers, had flung himself into the heart of the volcano and survived. Spewing fire and ecstasy, Dar had safely returned him to the volcano rim after having Her fill of him. And so Josarian's legend, born on the twin-moon night he had killed his first Valdani Outlooker, had ripened into fulfillment.

  Some of the other famous rebel leaders had been with him at Darshon, too, it was said. Tansen, Josarian's bloodbrother, was also a shallah, but he was rumored to be different from the other mountain peasants. He bore a strange foreign symbol on his chest, branded into his flesh by the gods of Kinto, which made him invincible. He carried two magically-engraved Kintish swords which he used with the skill of a sorcerer; they could leap out of their sheathes and slaughter men by themselves. It was said that Tansen had actually gone to Darshon to stop Josarian from jumping, afraid his bloodbrother would die in the Fires of Dar, but had arrived too late. And it was Mirabar, the stories said, who had led Josarian to Darshon. She was the flame-eyed, fire-haired Guardian whose visions had foretold Josarian's and Tansen's joint destiny to lead Sileria to freedom.

  The shallaheen, Zarien knew, feared beings like Mirabar—some silly mountain superstition about such people being demons. Yes, shallaheen were ignorant; but Zarien's father said that one must nonetheless honor the way they had flocked to Josarian's banner even before the events at Darshon. One must respect the many lives they had sacrificed to free Sileria from the Valdani.

  The sea-born folk had joined Josarian's cause after his transformation at Darshon, and now many of them were also dying. The Valdani were losing the war, and Josarian's destiny would soon be fulfilled. But the Valdani had not abandoned Sileria entirely. That day was yet to come.

  When we take Shaljir, Zarien thought, then the war will end, and the Valdani will finally surrender and leave forever.

  All of Sileria waited for Josarian to commence the attack on Shaljir. For the sea-born folk, it would be the deadliest and most important battle of the entire rebellion. Shaljir, the ancient capital city, was the largest and most active port in Sileria. Zarien knew his father thought that Josarian should have laid siege to the walled city before now, that he was waiting too long. The delay was due to dissension among different factions of the fragile rebel alliance. The landfolk liked nothing better than quarreling among themselves, and even war against the Valdani had not changed that. Josarian the Firebringer had become enemies with Kiloran, the most powerful waterlord in Sileria, and their feud weakened them both when it came to fighting the Valdani. And so the expected attack on Shaljir had yet to be launched.

  Zarien, however, was glad for the delay. If he killed a dragonfish now, then he could join in the final great sea battle of the rebellion and fight alongside his father and elder brother for the port of Shaljir. Although they sailed primarily off the Adalian coast, the Lascari had no intention of being left out of the siege of Shaljir. Only Bharata Ma-al had prevented the entire clan from sailing toward Shaljir before now; no one ever skipped the bharata. But when the new crescent of Ejara, the second moon, appeared in the night sky and the slaughter ended, the Lascari would sail east, via the sacred rainbow-chalk cliffs of Liron, and then turn north towards Shaljir.

  Oh, let me kill a dragonfish, that I may share the honor of driving the Valdani from the waters of Shaljir, Zarien prayed fervently to the eight gods who ruled the wind and to the nine goddesses who ruled the sea.

  After he placed the bloody purple heart of a dragonfish at his mother's feet, he would also be eligible to acquire a boat which he would someday offer as a wedding gift to the woman of his choice. Like his elder brother, Orman, he would continue living on his mother's boat until he married, and he would use the years between now and his marriage to make his own boat one that any woman would be proud to accept.

  Still praying for success during the bharata, Zarien watched the other arriving boats of his clan drop anchor and await his grandfather's signal to begin setting the nets. When he'd exhausted his promises to the gods about all he would do for them in exchange for the heart of a dragonfish, he thought again about the extraordinary events sweeping across Sileria now that the age of the Firebringer was at hand. Freedom from the Valdani. Freedom from crippling tribute and taxes, from sudden seizures and searches, from arrest, execution, and death by slow torture for violating the smallest of their endless laws. Freedom from the threat of transportation to the mines of Alizar, somewhere in the mountains of Sileria. No one sea-born had ever returned alive from Alizar. Zarien grinned, recalling the day they'd received word that Josarian had attacked and seized the mines. His father had opened a smuggled cargo of Kintish spirits and urged his family to drink freely.

  Zarien knew the number of his clan's square-sailed boats as well as he knew the number of his own fingers, so he knew when they had all arrived and were in position. The sun blazed gloriously down on the yellow sails and the azure waters as his grandfather blew into the ritual dragonfish horn, giving the first signal of the slaughter

  "Zarien!" his father called from the bow. "Prepare to drop the nets!"

  Zarien glowed with pride. The order meant that he would be the one to lead his own family in the setting of the nets. It was a great honor, one his father had hinted he would bestow upon him even though it was only his first bharata. Orman had led the setting of the nets before, so he wouldn't challenge Zarien's right to do so today—though Zarien knew he wouldn't get to do it two years in a row. His brother wasn't that generous.

  Now his younger brother Morven weighed anchor, allowing the boat to creep forward again with their mother at the helm as Sorin and Orman unfurled the foresail. Zarien lifted the first iron weight, his muscles straining as he prepared to heave it over the side. Orman, Morven, and their father took their places near him on the starboard side. The boat bobbed gently in the coastal current, and Zarien only noticed his slight adjustments to its motion because of the awkward weight he held in his arms.

  Taut silence replaced the typically gregarious boat-to-boat greetings of the sea-born people. Even the wind died down, awaiting the moment. Only the ever-present dull roar of the sea remained, the never-ending song of Sirkara. Then Zarien heard his grandmother's piercing wail, invoking the women of the clan to commence the chant of Bharata Ma-al. Zarien heaved the iron weight overboard, then heard his mother's voice strike the first note of the ritual chant at the very moment the weight struck the water.

  Now there was no time to think, no time to worry about disgracing himself or his family if he failed to live up to his father's expectations. He fell into the rhythm of the chant, ordering his father and brothers to guide the massive net overboard as he hoisted the next weight into his arms. This second weight was at the end of the first net, and it must be dropped into the water exactly as the first chant ended, carrying with it the women's entreaty to the nine goddesses that the net be filled with a good catch.

  One by one, they dropped the nets into the water, working in tandem with the rest of the clan to form a vast maze in the sea. The nets hung from huge cords that were floated by corks, stretched taut through the water and weighted at the bottom by the precisely spaced iron weights. The open ends of the maze all faced the open sea, from which the dragonfish would come. Any dragonfish which entered the nets would get caught in the maze and eventually swim into one of the dead ends, or death chambers, to which the underwater corridors led.

 
; Stringing the bharata maze across the killing grounds was a long, hard task. The Lascari men worked efficiently under the fierce Silerian sky, sweat pouring down their beardless faces and naked backs as they dropped weights and lowered nets in time to the rhythmic chanting that filled the salty air. The singing women guided the boats skillfully, weaving a pattern on the sea's surface which defined the shape of the maze in its depths.

  The ritual chant entered Zarien's blood, became part of his heartbeat, matched its pace to his breath. He no longer had to concentrate to ensure that he set the nets in time to the singing that blessed them. He moved and the movement was right, he breathed and the breath was song and prayer, he sweat and the sweat became the sea.

  This was what it was to be sea-born, to marry these glimmering azure waters at the moment of your birth, to carry the sea's mystery within your veins for the rest of your life. To work in pure harmony with the rest of your kind, afloat on a bit of bobbing wood amidst the endless wave and roar of the Middle Sea. To know your course based on the slightest touch of the wind against your skin, to smell the silent approach of land even in a fog, to shift your weight with currents and waves even in your sleep... There was no other life worth living.

  Arms trembling with exhaustion, Zarien helped his father lower the final iron weight into the water. The women's chanting ceased at the exact moment the weight slipped below the shimmering surface. Zarien's ears rang in the sudden silence. The weight sank to the bottom, carrying their hopes and prayers with it.

  "Aiola!" Zarien cried, and everyone on the boat followed his lead, shouting the guttural cheer in sea-born dialect that marked the end of setting the nets. Aiola! May they die!

  Above their own shouts and the gleeful cries from the other boats, they heard the clan leader blow the dragonfish horn again. This was their signal to salute the eight winds, turning on deck to honor each god as the horn wailed eight times in succession.

  Each of the eight gods was consort to one of the nine goddesses of the sea. The ninth goddess, Sharifar, had no consort. According to legend, she had been betrayed by the god who had been her consort, the ninth wind, and had cast him off. In his bitterness, he became the whirlwind—whom the sea-born folk loved no better than they loved the dragonfish. Ever since then, Sharifar had sought a new consort, but she had yet to find a man who satisfied her. If she ever chose one (which Zarien thought seemed unlikely after all this time), he would become the king of all the sea-born folk—their first acknowledged leader since before the Moorlanders had conquered Sileria a thousand years ago.

  Concluding his salute to the eighth wind, Zarien looked over his shoulder to meet his father's gaze. Sorin's dark face was creased with smiles now. His green eyes—a souvenir of the Moorlanders' long-ago Conquest not only of Sileria, but of many of its women—glowed with pride as he clapped Zarien on the back.

  "The nets are set well, son," he said, his grin broadening in response to Zarien's. "Perhaps I shouldn't have waited, perhaps I should have gone ahead and got you a stahra."

  Zarien smiled to himself, having already spotted the stahra in the exact same hiding place Sorin had used for Orman's coming-of-age gift two years ago. Neither Sorin's habits nor his teasing were original, but they were as much a rite of passage aboard this boat as was the bharata itself.

  "You didn't get me a stahra?" Zarien feigned outrage. "Don't you have faith in me?"

  His father shrugged. "Well, the dragonfish are not even here yet. We shall see, we shall see..." His eyes met those of his wife, Palomar, sharing the joke.

  "Yes," Zarien said, letting them enjoy what they fondly imagined was their secret. "You shall see. And then you'll be sorry you didn't get me a stahra before we left port."

  Now the Lascari floated their boats away from the bharata maze they had constructed with such care. When the first dragonfish was sighted tonight, the men would row into the maze in small oarboats, armed for the slaughter. Until nightfall, though, clan members rowed from boat to boat, visiting relatives and enjoying conversation. New wounds and scars were exclaimed over, new babies admired, new wives inspected. Cousins and in-laws shared gossip about friends and enemies in other sea-born clans. Everyone talked about the Firebringer and his bloodfeud with Kiloran the waterlord. Would it destroy the rebellion, or would Kiloran and Josarian concentrate on driving out the remaining Valdani in Sileria before one of them finally eliminated the other? Which of those two giants was most likely to survive their enmity? True, Josarian had entered the Fires of Darshon and survived. But Kiloran... even the sea-born folk, who had little to do with the Honored Society, whispered his name with awe, almost afraid to say it aloud. He was the most powerful waterlord in Sileria, perhaps even the most powerful who had ever lived.

  "If anyone can defeat the Firebringer," said Linyan, Zarien's grandfather, "surely it would be Kiloran."

  "Then we must remember Josarian in our prayers," said one of Zarien's uncles. The others resoundingly agreed with this, since the sea-born had sworn loyalty to Josarian, not to Kiloran.

  "Two days ago," said Zarien's father, Sorin, "we met with three boats of the Kurvari clan. They say that Kiloran has seized control of Cavasar." The Valdani had fiercely held onto Sileria's westernmost port city, even though its citizens had been among the first whom Josarian had inspired to riot and rebel.

  "So the Valdani have finally surrendered Cavasar?" one of Sorin's brothers asked.

  "But to Kiloran," Sorin pointed out. "Not to Josarian."

  "To Sileria," his brother corrected. "All that really matters is that now Cavasar is free."

  "Ah, but is it?" Linyan asked.

  "Of course!" Zarien ventured, emboldened by his new tattoos to participate in the conversation as a man. "If the Valdani have abandoned Cavasar as they abandoned Liron and Adalian, then the city is free."

  "Or have the Cavasari merely traded one master for another?" Sorin suggested. He and Linyan exchanged troubled looks.

  Another of Zarien's uncles shrugged. "At least now they have a Silerian master."

  "And the landfolk," Zarien said, "will always be mastered by someone." Not like the sea-born, who were meant to be free, beholden to no one except their own clans.

  "But the rule of a waterlord is harsh," Linyan said heavily. "You'll understand this soon enough, Zarien. Such men bring terrible suffering to the lives that they touch."

  Zarien's father agreed with this. Then, after a moment of contemplative silence, the men all began discussing other matters.

  As the sun set, painting a fantastic canvas of amber and amethyst across the endless sky, the Lascari sang songs and told stories. But when the lone new moon, Abayara, rose in the night sky, they fell silent. Soon the dragonfish would come, and nothing must warn them of the trap which awaited them. The Lascari lit no lanterns aboard their vessels tonight, and they ate cold meals this evening rather than risk lighting their braziers to cook. In silence and darkness, they awaited the enemy.

  Zarien was sitting between his father and brother in their long, low, wooden oarboat when the signal came. One of his cousins, keeping watch over the dark sea under a crescent-moon sky, had spotted the telltale horn of a dragonfish breaking the surface. His warning signal was soft, careful not to alarm the enemy swimming towards the maze. Sorin nodded to Zarien who, pleasantly aware of his younger brother's envious gaze, pushed the oarboat away from his mother's vessel and dipped his oars into the water to glide closer to the maze.

  Sorin silently directed Zarien with his right hand. In his left, he held an oil-soaked torch which he would light when the attack began and it was too late for the enemy to escape to the open sea. Their harpoons and tackle, along with Orman's and Sorin's stahra, were ready, neatly ordered at their feet or fastened to the sides of the boat. Now Zarien heard more signals from the lookouts as the number of sightings increased.

  "It will be a great slaughter this year," Sorin murmured, his low voice rich with anticipation.

  Please let me kill one, Zarien prayed to the wind
and the sea. What could be worse than failing to make his first kill during a bharata which would long be remembered as a particularly good one?

  As the sightings continued, he heard his brother say softly behind him, "So many this year, Papa!"

  Yes, Zarien decided firmly, he would rather die than endure the shame of failing to make his first kill now. Only some bumbling drylander would fail to take a dragonfish when so many were entering the maze.

  The boat heaved beneath him suddenly. A geyser of water drenched him as he caught his balance. "There's one underneath us!" Zarien released one oar and reached for a harpoon.

  Sorin laughed with exultation. "Let it go, Zarien. There will be enough in the maze for us."

  Heart pounding, Zarien watched the sleek, deadly creature disappear back into the dark water. It was huge. Bigger than the oarboat. What a fine first kill it would make! But he supposed his father was right. They'd waste time chasing it down, and probably wind up losing it in the dark, anyhow, unless it turned and attacked. Better to keep rowing toward the maze.

  More than twenty oarboats took their place around the bobbing corks that defined the vast and elaborate maze the Lascari had laid out under the brilliant sun. Now the men watched the water's opaque surface as they awaited the moment which would commence the slaughter. Zarien was so excited he could scarcely breathe. He stared unblinking at the water until his eyes burned.

  Then it came! The sudden, thrashing rise to the surface of the first dragonfish to reach a death chamber and realize it was trapped.

  "Aiola!" Zarien shouted. May they die!

  The exultant cry was repeated by all the Lascari as torches flamed into life in every boat on the water.

  More trapped dragonfish began rising to the surface, their massive curling horns reflecting the torchlight as they surged out of the water. Boats rocked wildly as the enormous bodies fell back down, noisily hitting the sea's surface and sending up showers of cool, salty water to drench the Lascari.